Eastbourne Labour Party
Women’s Forum
We have an extremely active Women’s Forum in our CLP. This is open to all women members of our CLP. It is run by our Women’s Officer Geraldine Rolfe.
If you would like to get involved in the women’s forum then please contact us at:
eastsbournelabourwomen@gmail.com
Next Women’s Forum Event:
The first women’s forum meeting of 2019 will be held on Saturday 16th February, 2 till 4pm at Seaside community hub. Fully disabled access in Seaside Rd. We are delighted to announce that our speakers include Nancy Platt, an experienced Brighton Councillor and former parliamentary candidate and Helen McCabe, a member of our CLP who is a local activist and entrepreneur. Our theme will be “elections, elections, engaging more women to stand.”. More speakers to be confirmed. Come join us.
If you missed the Bready Delights Women’s Social in November (Jamaican jerk chicken and goat curry went down a treat), don’t worry, we hope to have more social events like this in 2019. Kev the owner is a labour voter so he is well on board for supporting us. Look out for the WF newsletter soon.
STANDALONE NATIONAL LABOUR PARTY WOMEN’S CONFERENCE
Next year marks the reintroduction of a stand-alone Women’s Conference. Our Annual Women’s Conference enables our women members’ greater participation in policy making and offers the opportunity to share ideas with delegates from across the UK. Our CLP can send up to two delegates to the Annual Women’s Conference 2019. You don’t need to be a delegate to attend, all women members are entitled to attend.
DATE: 23 – 24 February 2019
VENUE: Telford International Centre
Continuing our project of holding monthly socials in ethnic eateries around Eastbourne, we had a great time at Bready Delights. It is an easy way of raising the profile of Labour in town and Kevin the owner (pictured) is a strong Labour Party supporter. Meeting together at these socials also builds trust and encourages good working relationships. Come join us .
EASTBOURNE LABOUR WOMEN’S FORUM ANNUAL MEETING
Come along and meet like-minded women at an informal gathering with Eastbourne Labour Women’s Forum (For Equality, Diversity & Social justice)
WE ARE HAVING A GET TOGETHER TO CELEBRATE OUR WOMEN’S FORUM ACHIVING IT’S 1st BIRTHDAY.
COME AND JOIN US FOR AFTERNOON TEA/COFFEE & CAKE!
Date: Saturday 16th February 2019
Time 1.45 p.m. FOR 2.00 p.m. START
It will be quite an informal afternoon for labour party women to meet others, to say hello, to talk about topics of common interest. It’s also a way to share how well have we done and how do we move forward to expand our activities.
We expect to have lots of fun, a raffle and to help us get started, we have invited several inspirational speakers, together with a Comedian. We will announce the line-up when confirmed. But in the meantime, SAVE THE DATE
Let us know if you need help to get to the venue and we will try and assist where we can. If you would like to come with a friend, who is not a member, to meet up with people you don’t know yet, you are welcome.
Email: eastbournelabourwomen@gmail.
or phone & leave a message on 07788699837
If you have a raffle prize lurking, bring that too 🙂
It is a FREE event
but if you would like to make a donation, that is always welcome .
Please register you are coming by emailing eastbournelabourwomen@gmail.
We started off the Suffragette Centenary year 2018 hoping to encourage many more of you remarkable women to join in to help us raise Labours’ profile in Eastbourne. I believe, if we put the work in, together we can WIN one or more seats in the council election 2019. We are now four months away from the local council elections but we still have time to WIN.
Relatively recent media headlines have read, Beccy Cooper Labour, wins first Worthing Borough Council seat after more than 40 years and Nancy Platt wins Whitehawk East Brighton council seat.
Beccy Cooper
We have invited both of these women to our celebration along with Emily Clark who stood in the County Council elections in 2017. Sadly, Emily didn’t that time win but undeterred, Emily is standing again in the next May 2019 Local Council elections ,in Castle Ward, Lewes.
Of course, we cannot fail to mention Lloyd Russell Moyle’s unexpected Parliamentary Labour win in Brighton & Hove. There is a phenomenal wind of Labour victories sweeping along our south coast ,heading towards Eastbourne. Are we going to be ready to take up the challenge?
Women’s Officer Conference Report
You may have seen the media coverage of the Labour Party Annual Conference which was largely biased and negative as usual. I’m sure the vast majority of us, who were actually there, or followed live on TV, came away with a very different and positive vibe. Just contrast this with the sterile business convention that passes for the Tory Conference and the lack lustre Liberal Democrats.
Due to poor media coverage, you may not be aware that before the main Labour Conference began, Labour held a Woman’s Conference with 1,000 delegates from all over the country and for the first time, this conference was guaranteed to have a motion included in the main conference. I was privileged to be the Eastbourne Labour delegate and I found the conference vibrant and exciting.
It is important to note that in the history of the Labour Party, this year was the first time women were able to establish the fact that their voices matter in national policy-making. We must go a long way to build on this, but we have now taken the vital first step.
I cannot stress too strongly how important it is to ensure that your Eastbourne Labour delegate is democratically mandated by our membership. This is especially important for the main annual conference as this is the only opportunity for all members to influence or change Labour Party rules and policy. Focus should be on ensuring that our delegate/s supports policies to transform Britain, and thus reflects the views of Labour’s membership. This year all Labour Constituency Parties were entitled to submit a motion to the Women’s Conference.
There were 1000 women delegates in the conference hall. So many women together in one room, for me brings an amazing feeling of belonging and solidarity. We do not all need to agree on everything, but we do agree that we are all in the same struggle to get our voices heard, even within the Labour Party, never mind taking our rightful place in society.
A few quotes from Conference speakers may have resonance for some of you:
“If women’s equality was a car it would never be called speed.y”
“A woman comes up with a good idea – but nobody is listening till a man repeats it as his own idea.”
“86% of austerity cuts have fallen on the shoulders of women.”
“Our minds are being invaded by half-truths, prejudice, and false talks – there is little hope for us until we become tough-minded enough to break loose from these shackles.”
“Just imagine if all the men fought for the rights of women, equal pay would be achieved overnight!”
We as Labour women, have much to do and we can only make our lives and our childrens’ lives, and future, better – by getting active locally in Eastbourne. We can make activism fun. Don’t let your circumstances limit your ability to come along and meet like-minded women. We can arrange accessible social meeting venues where you can bring your kids, or where you don’t need to worry about getting up and down stairs. If you need a lift, or a travel buddy, then we will try to arrange that for you. So, no woman is left behind or isolated.
I’m not sure if the Women’s Conference was televised but speeches were recorded on youtube. So as a group we may not yet be interesting enough to get a slot on mainstream media. Nevertheless, Dawn Butler, who was inspirational, ignited great excitement in the hall, and engendered real belief that we are on the verge of winning the next general election. Here’s a snippet from Dawn’s speech: –
“Intersectionality is about how different layers of discrimination interact with each other – for example – our laws do not recognise the fact that black women can be discriminated against because they are both black and a woman; or a woman being discriminated against because of her age and gender; or disability and gender. Just imagine if all white people fought for the rights of black people – racism would no longer be so prevalent in our society – and just imagine if all the straight people fought for the rights of the LGBT+ community – homophobia would be a thing of the past. Imagine our society, truly a place for the many and not the few, we have to be that society we have to be the change we seek.”